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Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Grandfather Olesky – that’s
me – will be going on Grandfather Mountain near Linville, North Carolina so I
won’t be posting articles on this blog till at least Tuesday.

I’m giving up golf at the
Sunny Hill senior league in Kent on Friday and the Brookledge senior league in
Cuyahoga Falls on Monday – right when I’m in the middle of a hot streak of 7
par holes and 1 birdie hole for the 13 most recent holes – to be with my
younger daughter, Monnie Ann, and her husband, Bob, at their vacation home
about an hour from Charlotte and maybe a little closer to Grandfather Mountain.

It should be an interesting
hike up Grandfather Mountain, since the temperature forecast is for the 60’s
once you hit the peak at 5,946 feet. That’s almost twice as high as any
mountain in my native West Virginia. The journey at the bottom is forecast to
begin in temperatures up to 90 degrees.

I remember going from 72
degrees at the foot of Mount Washington in New Hampshire to 20 below zero wind
chill by the time we got to the peak at 6,288 feet. There are markers on Mount
Washington of climbers who froze to death within 400 feet of the safety cabins
because they couldn’t see them in the blinding snowstorms that pop up without
warning.

Interestingly, nearby is
Grandmother Gap. I wouldn’t touch that line with a 5-foot-8 Pole, which is my
height at the age of 83.

Mount
Washington is the highest peak in the Eastern United States. Grandfather
Mountain, 70 miles from Asheville and the famous 255-room Biltmore mansion
of the Vanderbilts, is the highest peak on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge
Mountains.

I’ve
traveled to 54 countries and 44 states, so I’ve been to the mountaintop before.

The
Grand Canyon, Zion Canyon, the Alps in Italy and Austria, the Great Wall of
China, Harry Potter’s Middle Earth setting in New Zealand.

But
it’s always a thrill to enjoy Mother Nature when you can see her work for miles
and miles when you get to the top.

Or a
master painter who puts Michelangelo and Picasso to shame when He created
Yellowstone National Park's rainbow of colorful pools and the thousands of
“sculptures” in Bryce Canyon in Utah.

While I am gone August 18-22, please direct all BJ Alums blog inquiries and
information to Ken Krause, former BJ sports editor who lives in Medford,
Massachussetts. Send the emails to Ken at kenneth.krause@comcast.net
with your information or inquiry.